A Three Step Plan for Coping

Three essentials I found for coping with stressors in on base life are: all weather exercise gear, a third party to listen and the ability to keep your mouth shut with neighbors.

First, I must stress the all weather exercise gear. In Louisiana, I needed to walk whether it was gloomy and raining or 110 degrees with 100% humidity. I recommend rain gear. A stroller with a rain cover is helpful. Being able to swallow my pride and expose stretch marks and cellulite was an advantage, too. I had to strip Elaina down to just her diaper and make sure her stroller was well shaded at least once.

Second, a third party for listening. I regret that I may have passed on my bad mood to some of my friends on base. That sort of thing just spreads and before you know it everyone in the neighborhood is either fighting with their husbands, too, or talking about how you're on your way to a divorce. On the flip side, there are also the people who I trusted and confided in who were less than trustworthy. My mother was my best sounding board. For others it may be a sister, a childhood friend, or someone they met off base and cultivated a friendship with. I value my friendships with other military wives, but we tend to face similar obstacles and sometimes they seem insurmountable as none of us find viable solutions.

This brings me to my third point. I am not good at keeping my mouth shut. I had to learn and I still have improvements to make. Your neighbors will talk about any little thing you say to them as if it's a monumental problem. I told one neighbor that I couldn't watch her daughter that evening because I had had an argument with my husband that needed to be straightened out. She held this against me and when she felt the time was right she told me that I was unreliable and that my marriage needed work. I thought I was putting my marriage first and acting as responsibly as I could. Evidentially it would have been more responsible to watch her daughter, so that she could go to a movie with her husband, and straighten out my misunderstanding later.

My Application for Sainthood

Tomorrow I'm going to tell everyone how I find my Zen after feeling awful.

Today I'm going to tell you how I don't.

I probably went over my cell phone minutes by about an hour the day that my neighbor said she didn't want to hang around me because she felt like I was competing with her. I walked about 15 miles and talked to my mother on my cell phone for a lot of that time.

Later, I cried and yelled at my husband. I blamed him for putting me where I was and trapping me with these awful women on base. I blamed him for not making more money and for not finding us more happy couples and families to be friends with.

After all that unhealthy behavior (well, the walking might have been healthy), I started to deal with things a better way....